Where Were You On February 22, 1980?

1980 US Hockey Team Beats The Soviets At Lake Placid Olympics

We were in a car traveling on the Interstate in Connecticut and listening to a radio broadcast of the US Hockey Team play Russia at the Lake Placid Olympics. The Soviet hockey team was heavily favored to win its fifth straight Olympic gold medal. The US tied the score 2-2 at the end of the first period. The Soviets scored the only goal in the second period. The US tied the game in the third and then Mike Erusione scored halfway in the third period to go ahead 4-3. It was then up to goalkeeper, Jim Craig, to hold off the Soviet assault. With 5 seconds left in the game the US cleared the puck and we had what has been termed the “Miracle on Ice”. At that point on the Interstate lights on the cars started to flash and there was a cacophony of sound from car horns. I guess we were not alone in listening to the game! It was a magical moment! From February 7-23, 2014, the Winter Games will be held in Sochi, Russia. Dartmouth will be well represented by Hannah Kearney ’15, Andrew Weibrecht ’09 and Gillian Apps ’06. There are 19 other Dartmouth College athletes – alums and undergrads- that readied for the trials that would determine whether or not they will travel to Russia for the Games. These student-athletes work hard both in and out of the classroom and it will be a true pleasure to watch them as they compete on the world stage. E.M. Smith once stated in Sports Illustrated about the 1980 US hockey team’s win over the Soviets “It was an Olympic moment, the kind the creators of the Games must have had in mind, one that said: Here is something that is bigger than any of you.” Maybe at the 2014 Sochi Games we will have another miracle, one that makes us stand and applaud and say “Well done!”

This entry was posted
on Sunday, January 5th, 2014 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Inn News, Winter Events.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.